Early last week, LG had announced its premium Urbane smart watch that comes with a circular display and an upmarket all-metal design. Ahead of MWC 2015, they have just announced an upgraded version that comes with 4G LTE connectivity.

At first glance, it looks like a direct competitor to the Samsung Gear S and it even supports high quality VoLTE calls (Voice over LTE). To last longer on your wrist, the Urbane LTE comes with a 700mAh capacity unit (Standard Urbane: 410mAh), which is the largest for a smart watch but LG didn’t mention any battery life ratings. On top of that, LG has also included NFC which allows mobile payment without the need of taking out your smart phone from your pocket.

The super sexy LG G Flex 2 will be made available in more countries with major carriers in the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, France, Germany and the U.K. will be among the first to offer the G Flex 2 while key markets in North and South America, Europe and Asia will announce the start of sales in the weeks following MWC.

However this announcement does’t confirm if the G Flex 2 will be available in Malaysia. And judging by the shaky position that LG Mobile is in in Malaysia, we’re not entirely sure if the device will be coming to Malaysia at all. So if you’re planning to get the LG G Flex 2, your best bet right now is to get it from Singapore or from local grey importers but get ready to pay a hefty premium if you’re going with grey importers.

The G Flex 2 features an unique 5.5-inch Full HD (1080×1920)flexible Plastic-OLED display that delivers a pixel density of 401 ppi. The display also offers enhanced durability thanks to its plastic construction and flexible properties. Under the hood, you get an octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor clocked at 2.0GHz mated with 2GB of RAM. You get an option of 16GB or 32GB of on board storage and the microSC card slot support cards up to 2TB in size! If you’re wondering, the G Flex 2 runs Android Lollipop 5.0

It’s 2015 and most flagships will be powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 810 processor. If you can’t wait for the Mi Note Pro or newer devices that would be announced at MWC 2015, the LG G Flex 2 is finally here in Malaysia.

Announced at CES 2015, this is the first smart phone to run Qualcomm’s new top of the line processor. While LG Malaysia is still contemplating of bringing this in, retailer DirectD has brought the latest flagship into Malaysia. The grey imported G Flex 2 is going for RM2,999, which is the same price as the Galaxy Note Edge.

If smart watches are playthings to you, LG is trying to bring it up a notch with its all-metal Watch Urbane. Like the G Watch R, it gets a round 1.3″ P-OLED display that does 320×320 resolution. But instead of a sporty outlook, the Watch Urbane has a contemporary design which makes it practical for formal occasions. Compared to the Moto 360, it looks less bulky too.

Powering the device is a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 prcessor with 512MB RAM and there’s 4GB of on-board storage. You can take it anywhere without worries as it also gets IP67 water and dust resistance as standard. The Watch Urbane is available in either polished Silver or Gold and comes with a leather strap that’s replaceable with any compatible 22mm bands. Also built-in is a PPG (photoplethysmography) sensor which can track your heart rate and average pulse.

If you’re wondering what’s the price, LG says they will reveal it closer to each respective market launch. The watch will also make an appearance at the upcoming MWC 2015 and hopefully we’ll get a closer look.

Qualcomm is having a rough start for 2015. After speculation of delays and production issues, it was reported that Samsung has decided to drop Qualcomm’s top of the line Snapdragon 810 processor from its new Galaxy S6 flagship smart phone. Citing overheating issues, Samsung will turn to their very own Exynos solution for their next big thing.

So is there a serious problem with the latest Octa-Core Snapdragon 810 processor? Not really, according to their home rival LG. The LG G Flex 2 which was the first smart phone to be announced with the new processor will be available in South Korea on 30th January. This dispels reliability issues of the new processor and LG has shown confidence to go to market with it.

LG’s Vice President for Mobile Product Planning, Woo Ram-Chan says that “I am very much aware of the various concerns in the market about the (Snapdragon) 810, but the chip’s performance is quite satisfactory”. So is Samsung’s allegation unfounded? Or Qualcomm overheating claim was unfairly made as an excuse for them to stick to its own supply of Exynos processors?

The Xiaomi Mi Note is probably the best spec’ed device right now with its Pro version having a Quad HD 5.7″ display and it runs on the top of the line Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 Octa-Core processor with 4GB of RAM. To find out how does it stand against today’s current flagship offering, we’ve compared it with 15 other devices that carries at least a 5.5″ screen.

This includes its direct rivals such as the iPhone 6 Plus, Nexus 6, Meizu MX4 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. At the moment, the Mi Note Pro is currently the 2nd smart phone to be announced with the latest Snapdragon 810 processor after the LG G Flex 2. It is also the 2nd device to offer 4GB of RAM, following the announcement of ASUS ZenFone 2.

In the dimensions department, the Mi Note aims directly at the iPhone 6 Plus where it is thinner, narrower and lighter despite having a bigger 5.7″ display than the iPhone 6 Plus’s 5.5″ screen. However the LG G3 is still the lightest in this comparison at just 149 grams.

LG knows a thing or two about making mobile devices. The G3, G3 Stylus and the G Flex pack some serious hardware, and then there’s the ultra-stylish G Watch R, a Android Wear wearable that makes the Moto 360 look plain and the Apple Watch look downright ugly. Let’s also not forget about the Knock Code, a unique, easy to use and relatively secure way to keep your device secure, it’s also damn cool. Speaking of cool, there are not many smartphones in the market right now that uses lasers to for auto focusing — the LG G3 is one of those rarities. So why is it then we’re not seeing more and more LG devices coming to Malaysia?

From what we can tell it all comes down to focus and resources. The smartphone market in Malaysia is already crowded as it is and LG also have to look after its consumer goods business. At the moment, LG sees its consumer goods market being more important and the brand is focused to defend its position in that market. Mobile is a nice thing to have for LG but right now, it doesn’t have enough resources to fight with the big brands like Sony and Samsung on both fronts (mobile and consumer goods).

So where does this put yet to be available in Malaysia LG devices, like the G Flex 2 and upcoming G4? We checked with a representative of LG Malaysia, and the response was straightforward and un-optimistic — “at the moment there are no visibility of the incoming [LG] phones to Malaysia. The only available phones now are the LG G3 and G3 Stylus”.

It’s great that LG has made the G3 and G3 Stylus available in Malaysia but if those devices are not moving off store shelves then LG will have to re-look its position in the local mobile device space. For now, it looks like LG is unsure if it wants to continue pushing mobile devices in Malaysia.

The LG G Flex 2 is finally revealed, replacing its original G Flex smart phone that comes with a curved and flexible display. The screen is now downsized from its former 6.0″ to a more pocketable 5.5″ size but it gets a higher Full HD (1920X1080) resolution that now pushes a higher pixel density of 400ppi. Underneath, the G Flex 2 has no compromises with the latest Qualcomm 64-bit Snapdragon 810 processor clocked at 2.0GHz and it is mated with either 2GB or 3GB of faster DDR4 RAM. Surprisingly LG prefers to go for faster RAM instead of more capacity.

For imaging, it gets a 13MP camera with Optical Image Stabilisation and focusing is extra quick thanks to its laser auto-focus feature like the LG G3. For the front, it settles for a 2.1MP shooter which is rather low for the current selfie age. On-board, it comes with either 16GB or 32GB of storage that’s likely to be expandable as well. In the battery department, it is smaller than the original G Flex at 3,000mAh but it supports fast charging, capable of juicing up to 50% in 40 minutes.

Early rumours suggest that the new G Flex 2 will be smaller than its current model that stands out with a large 6.0″ HD 720p display. The new version could be hovering around 5.0-5.5″ inches with a higher resolution (Full HD or Quad HD) screen. At time of release, the G Flex was the answer to Samsung’s Galaxy Round with a more ergonomic design and a claimed IMAX-like viewing experience.

In addition, the G Flex also has an interesting self-healing feature where its back panel can cure itself from mild scratches. With LG Malaysia back in the smart phone business, there’s now a chance for us to get it officially.

To refresh your memory, check out our past hands-on video as well as photos of the G Flex after the break.

See-through phones were quite cool back in the 90s. Now LG is bringing it back with its first Firefox OS smart phone that’s announced with Japan’s KDDI network.

At first glance, the Fx0 stands out with its transparent shell and apparently it was designed deliberately to symbolise Mozilla’s commitment to open source. While it looks cool with a golden colour base, the device is quite a mid-tier affair.

It gets a 4.7″ display that pushes 1280×720 pixels resolution and it runs on a Quad-Core Snapdragon 400 processor with 1.5GB of RAM. There’s a decent 16GB of storage that’s expandable and it comes with a 8MP camera and 4G LTE connectivity. The LG Fx0 is currently sold only in Japan at about US$410. So far there’s no word of them releasing the device internationally.

Check out the hands-on video and official images of the LG Fx0 after the break.